In other news ... Vesperia!
Fought Duke with Rita (duh!), Estelle, and Judith. I also totally cheated with the battle. I played him first set on hard (by accident) and got my butt handed to me. Then I was like "oh, that was still set on hard" and changed it back to normal. More butt handing in the third battle with the Fel Arms. Then I was went "I am so tediously bored with this and I want my new game plus RIGHT NOW" and set it on easy and totally wiped the floor with him. D= No I don't feel bad about that at all. Now that the game completing is done, it's a lot easier to go back and just do stuff like grade farm.
Also, total slashy moment there with Duke (who they didn't kill o.O;) and Yuri there when they were fighting the Adephagos. D= And the Yuri and Flynn fight? OMG OMG OMG I squeal like a fangirl in utter glee. PURE GLEE I so want to RP me some Yuri and Flynn, oh yes.
But I digress from the rant I want to have about Estelle ...
D= .... god, I want to kill her. I got to the point where I was yelling at her on the TV about being an utter moron. Her AI is the most stupid AI ever. EVER. She's a healer who doesn't heal. She thinks she's a melee fighter or something. It is complete ARGH. I got to the point where I just kept popping the menu screen open every time she finished a spell and told her what spell she was going to do next. She also CAN'T KEEP HER HANDS OFF THE ITEMS. She has resurrection, but she ALWAYS USES A LIFE BOTTLE. She has heal, but she'll ALWAYS USE A GEL. I totally removed use items from everyone, I was so pissed. She's also UTTERLY USELESS in OL. UTTERLY USELESS! She doesn't cast spells, she doesn't bust out with burst artes, oh no ... she just runs up and hits things with her weapon. SO USELESS. I killed OL for her too. She has resurrection, revitalize, and recover, though, which I kinda needed. So I suffered through having her on my team. --;
Judith and Repede are kinda interchangeable for me, but Judith is a little more aggressive with the attack, so I use her more in boss battles than Repede. Meanwhile Repede is the only one with thievery, so I use him whenever I want to loot someone in battle.
Rita, being the only magic user, is always a member of my team. Always. No matter what.
I liked using Raven, but he kept dying. He'd use up all his artes real quick, and then he'd get himself killed by some random enemy that slipped through. His love shot was really useful, though. If it's not a big boss battle, I usually have Raven instead of Estelle. I only put up with Estelle for resurrection.
I hardly ever use Karol. He's just too slow. He's really reliable with the healing, but I'd always end up moving out of the heal field at the last moment on accident. =/ Sadness, because he is very cute.
I spent the whole game not using skills. x.x I thought if they were white colored, they were on ... but no, they're green when on. I kept wondering why I couldn't use items on other characters in battle ... I'd feel more stupid than I do if I could actually read the menu text with ease. D= We will eventually have a new big-ass TV, when my mom makes up her mind on what she wants (she can't decide if she wants to maintain status quo or go LARGE and rearrange the living room).
Well, now that I've figured out this skills thing, I've gone back to my original game and have started grade farming with Rita, for I wish to play new game plus with oh, just about everything you can buy with grade. =D
=/ Although, weirdly, my collector's book does not seem to want to collect information. I've gotten drops from enemies that aren't showing up in the collector's book at all. x.x I'm kinda annoyed.
Also the fact that you can't sort, like anything, in any of the menus or books is a real pain in my butt. If I'd been able to at least sort by alphabet, searching for things would be a LOT easier.
I like all the characters, but Yuri is hands down my favorite. Following him closely is Repede and Flynn, then comes Raven and Judith, and then the other three. =/ I didn't think I would like Judith or Rita or Estelle, but I really really DID. It was the fine hand of their character development. Not a heavy hand in there at all. D= It's so awesome it makes me squee. Even if the plot and that wtf moment there in the middle could have used some work.
=/ The dungeons aren't nearly as hard (or rather tedious?) in this game as they were in ToA or ToS. I'm not sure whether to be sad or glad ...
This is the first Tales game that I've cooked in to get the titles. I went "whatever" to that in ToA and ToS because it was so RANDOM and kinda more complicated. This time it was fairly straightforward. That and with all the synth material I was looking for, it was fairly easy to just cook after every battle while I was doing that.